Gentleman outlaw

Country music has always had its share of outlaws. Long before Willie Nelson and the rest of the Highwaymen, there were people like Bob Wills, Hank Williams Sr. and even stalwarts like Roy Acuff and – bless his rhinestones – Porter Wagoner bucking the norm.

Today, it’s crusty, opinionated, my-way-or-the-highway Toby Keith who’s wearing the outlaw bandanna, knotted by no less than the Red Headed Stranger himself.

In a 2003 interview, Keith jokingly bristled about being called an outlaw while standing next to Nelson.

“I said, ‘Whoa, whoa! If he’s an outlaw, you can’t call me an outlaw because I haven’t done half of the stuff he’s done,’ ” Keith said. “And (Nelson) said, ‘You’re only half as old as I am.’ “

Through it all, Nashville tries – and fails – to tell Keith what to do and he tries – and succeeds – to tell Nashville what he’s going to do.

Twenty million albums sold, a string of No. 1 hits and the top spots in country concert ticket sales for the last three years is a lot of ammunition for your six-shooters.

The Academy of Country Music’s reigning Entertainer of the Year, Keith recently received six nominations for this year’s Country Music Association awards. His latest album, “Shock ‘N Y’All,” has gone four times platinum and his “Greatest Hits 2” album comes out on Tuesday.

Keith’s clashes with Nashville’s suits are pretty much the stuff of legend.

“There was a defiant swagger to him that everybody picked up on in the early days that helped define him,” said Brian Phillips, the senior vice president and general manager of MTV-owned Country Music Television.

“At this point, you have to say that he’s achieved the kind of acceptance that should get rid of any lasting bad feelings or stigma that he might have felt a few years ago.

“But yeah, I think acceptance came a little more slowly to him than it should have,” Phillips added. “I think the fans got it first, as they always do, and the industry lags.”

James Stroud, Keith’s longtime producer and the current co-chairman of Universal Music Group – the parent company of Keith’s DreamWorks label – said he’s seen tons of evidence that Keith is a burr under Nashville’s saddle.

He doesn’t get the respect he deserves in corporate Music City “because he doesn’t play their games,” Stroud said.

“But you know what? I think he’s very happy in that. I don’t think he cares about whether certain parts of our business respect him. I think what he really cares about the most … is the fans.”

Terri Clark, who also appears in Keith’s Big Throwdown Tour – which comes to the Spokane Arena on Thursday – said the 6-foot-4 Oklahoman may finally be receiving the plaudits he deserves.

“He seems to be getting that now,” she said. “Sometimes, it takes them a while to catch on. But all things come in time, and I think the longer it takes, often the longer it lasts – and the more it means when it does come.”

Keith himself isn’t so sure. Despite the massive record sales, despite the fact that CMT’s Phillips said he’s never turned in a video that hasn’t gone to No. 1, the suits keep bucking him. And that leaves him puzzled.

“I make my music and it works for me and they still find ways to tell me no, and I still find ways to keep getting my music to the people,” Keith said in a telephone interview from a tour stop in Albuquerque, N.M.

“As long as it works, we’re going to keep doing it. But it’s amazing to me that no matter how many times I prove somebody wrong, the same people come right back to you the next time and tell you no again. It’s like, ‘When are you gonna freakin’ learn?’ “

Keith, who comes across in interviews as the straight shooter his friends insist he is, is not exactly worried about the resistance. But it does seem to rankle him.

“You talk to Shooter Jennings, Waylon’s son, and he goes, ‘Man, you were my dad’s favorite new guy,’ ” Keith said.

And the calls come in from people like Nelson, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Buffett asking him to perform with them.

“I don’t have to care about what somebody from Austin or Nashville thinks about me because the people like that put up with the same kind of criticism I’m getting,” Keith said. “When you’re on top, you’re just going to get it.”

Aside from fans, the people who will never say a bad word about Toby Keith are those who open for him on tour.

“One of the best experiences we ever had was with Toby Keith,” said Rascal Flatts bassist Jay DeMarcus, whose band toured with Keith on the original “Shock’n Y’all Tour” last fall.

“He really made us feel like we were out there winning together every night. … We developed a special relationship with Toby to where we felt like he was a fan and he would have our back at any time, any place.”

Keith seems to inspire loyalty. It’s something he learned from his dad, who really was the Army veteran he wrote about in “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American).”

H.K. Covel (Keith was born Keith Toby Covel in July 1961) worked his way up to a midcontinent manager for one of the major oil companies, and he took care of the men and women who took care of him. He died in a car crash in 2001.

“He always showed me how loyalty is a pretty important thing,” Keith said. “Without loyalty, you really don’t have any outlines for structures of your systems or anything.

“I’ve always been a kind of hands-on guy for my business. Obviously, I can’t be across the board right now. We’ve got 92 people out here on the road. When you have as many trucks and buses and stuff as we’ve got out here, you have to have a system. All the people who are loyal are in good positions.”

The influence of Keith’s father – and his own upbringing in rural Moore, Okla., nestled between Norman and Oklahoma City – is also behind sometimes controversial songs like “Angry American.”

“He was in the Army,” Keith said. “That story is all true. Much hell as I’ve put up with for that song, they’d have me crucified (if it wasn’t).”

It has led to some misconceptions, he said: “Because of that song, people just automatically assume I’m a right-wing lug nut.”

Case in point: an interview in which a pair of movie producers were talking about a film in the works. “Their favorite one that they’re working on is one where ‘a Toby Keith-type character’ blows Europe up,” Keith says. “I’m like, ‘Where did that come from?’ “

But don’t get the idea that the former semipro football defensive end has gone soft. His support for the invasion of Afghanistan has been well documented, even if his own status as “a registered Democrat, which I have been my whole life,” has not.

Indeed, Keith entertained supporters of President Bush with a surprise performance of his pro-military anthem “American Soldier” during an election eve campaign rally Monday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

What may surprise fans about the man who gave us “I Wanna Talk About Me,” “How Do You Like Me Now?” and “Who’s Your Daddy?” is that he is a staunch family man, married for 20 years to wife Tricia and the father of three.

His youngest, a boy named Stelen, is just 7 years old. Keith zealously guards their privacy, turning away all questions with a brief, but friendly, “I don’t talk about that.”

“Some people misquote him and misunderstand him, but he’s a great family man,” said his friend and producer Stroud.

“He’s an amazing businessman, well thought of in his community. But he has that side of him that says, ‘This is the way that I am. If you like it, great. If you don’t, great.”

Willie, Waylon and the boys would be proud.